The potential role of Hypericum perforatum in wound healing: A literature review on the phytochemicals, pharmacological approaches, and mechanistic perspectives

Bahareh Farasati Far; Ghazaleh Gouranmohit; Mohammad Reza Naimi-Jamal; Erfan Neysani; Heba A S El-Nashar; Mohamed El-Shazly; Kamyar Khoshnevisan

doi:10.1002/ptr.8204

The potential role of Hypericum perforatum in wound healing: A literature review on the phytochemicals, pharmacological approaches, and mechanistic perspectives

Phytother Res. 2024 Apr 10. doi: 10.1002/ptr.8204. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Bahareh Farasati Far¹, Ghazaleh Gouranmohit², Mohammad Reza Naimi-Jamal¹, Erfan Neysani³, Heba A S El-Nashar⁴, Mohamed El-Shazly⁴, Kamyar Khoshnevisan^{5

6}

Affiliations

¹ Research Laboratory of Green Organic Synthesis and Polymers, Department of Chemistry, Iran University of Science and Technology, Tehran, Iran.
² Faculty of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Pharmaceutical Sciences Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
³ Pharmaceutical Sciences Research Center, Tehran Medical Sciences, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
⁴ Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt.
⁵ Medical Nanotechnology and Tissue Engineering Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
⁶ Department of Tissue Engineering and Applied Cell Sciences, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

PMID: 38600756
DOI: 10.1002/ptr.8204

Abstract

St. John's Wort, commonly known as Hypericum perforatum L., is a flowering plant in the Clusiaceae family that traditionally been employed for treating anxiety, depression, wounds, burns, sunburn, irritation, and stomach ailments. This review provides a synopsis of H. perforatum L. phytoconstituents and their biological effects, highlighting its beneficial therapeutic properties for dermatological indications, as well as its antioxidant, antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and anti-angiogenic activity in various applications including wound healing and skin conditions such as eczema, sun burn and minor burns also spastic paralysis, stiff neck and mood disorders as anti-depressant and nerve pains such as neuralgia. The data were collected from several databases as Web of Science PubMed, ScienceDirect, Scopus and Google Scholar using the terms: "H. perforatum L.", "H. perforatum L. /phytochemistry," and "H. perforatum extracts/wound healing" collected from 1994 to 2023. The findings suggest H. perforatum L. acts through various mechanisms and plays a role in each phase of the wound healing process, including re-epithelialization, angiogenesis, wound contraction, and connective tissue regeneration. H. perforatum L. enhances collagen deposition, decreases inflammation, inhibits fibroblast migration, and promotes epithelialization by increasing the number of fibroblasts with polygonal shape and the number of collagen fibers within fibroblasts. H. Perforatum L. extracts modulate the immune response and reduce inflammation were found to accelerate the wound healing process via inhibition of inflammatory mediators' production like interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-α, cyclooxygenase-2 gene expression, and inducible nitric oxide synthase. Thus, H. perforatum L. represents a potential remedy for a wide range of dermatological problems, owing to its constituents with beneficial therapeutic properties. H. perforatum L. could be utilized in the development of novel wound healing therapies.

Keywords: Clusiaceae; Hypericum perforatum; dermatological; hypericin; wound healing.

Publication types

Review